The present invention relates to software licenses. In particular, a medical system and a variety of procedures for providing and activating software licenses for the medical system are provided.
Medical equipment is rented or purchased for diagnostic, treatment, and research purposes. For example, medical imaging equipment is shipped and delivered to a variety of locations, such as hospitals, research laboratories, and clinics. Medical imaging includes, but is not limited to, magnetic resonance tomography (“MRT”) or imaging (“MRI”), positron emission tomography (“PET”), and computed tomography (“CT”) as well as hybrid modalities.
Software applications are utilized to run and monitor the medical equipment. For example, sophisticated imaging software is used to create images of internal features of humans, animals, and other objects. A variety of software applications provided by the vendor of the medical equipment or separate software vendor may be installed in the medical equipment.
A license may govern the utilization of the different software applications by a customer or client. Therefore, the customer or client is required to obtain a license for a desired use of a desired software application. After the customer or client receives the medical equipment, identification information of the equipment is obtained. The client or customer then contacts the vendor of the equipment and/or software and provides the identification information. An administrator at the vendor generates a software license for the specific software application and desired use of the software application. After the software license is generated, the license is transferred to the client, for example, through a remote connection. However, requesting a license, generation of the license, and transferring the license may become tedious.